Wellwood's brother slashes leg with skate

TWICE this season, serious skate cuts have hit close to home for Jets right-winger Kyle Wellwood.

In February, teammate Zach Redmond had his right thigh sliced open by teammate Antti Miettinen's skate.

On Sunday, Wellwood's younger brother, 23-year-old left-winger Eric, had his lower leg slashed by his own skate when he fell into the boards while playing an AHL game for the Adirondack Phantoms.

Older brother Kyle said Monday Eric was doing fine, considering the severity of the cut.

"I've texted with him," Kyle said. "One of his teammates got my number and texted me and then the trainers called me.

"He's doing fine. He's talking, even skated off the ice under his own power. He had his first surgery to sew up his artery and there are a couple of tendons that are cut, so he's going to have to have a second surgery with a specialist."

Wellwood said that with today's medical expertise, good outcomes from injuries are frequent. Redmond's return to the ice already is an example.

"It's tough; you think more about their careers than the pain of it," he said. "You know it'll be sore and it's really unfortunate and you always worry about what kind of effect it's going to have on their careers. But reports are pretty good. They seem to make recoveries through everything. I hope that's the case."

Dirty hit doesn't faze Wheels

THE list of things wrong with the hit Saturday included high, late and no puck around.

But Scott Hartnell of the Philadelphia Flyers got a complete free pass -- no penalty, no further examination by the Department of Player Safety -- for his blindside of Jets winger Blake Wheeler during the third period.

Wheeler, who finished the 4-1 win after the hit, said Monday he was fine after it happened.

"It doesn't happen very often where you get hit (like that)," he said. "I didn't see him coming, so I was kind of tripped a little bit, but I was fine after that."

Ladd takes a break

JETS captain Andrew Ladd took part in the first half of Monday's rare full-team practice at the MTS Centre.

Ladd left about halfway through the 55-minute session.

Jets coach Claude Noel said later Ladd was just taking some maintenance time and that he'll be playing in tonight's game versus Buffalo.

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